Francesca Cricchio
Journal for Sui Sin Far (Edith Maud Eaton)
English 48B
January 26th, 2011
“You do no know-man- what it is to miss the feel of the little fingers and the little toes and the soft round limbs of your little one. Even in the darkness his darling eyes used to shine up to mine, and often have I fallen into slumber with his pretty babble at my ear.” (882)
“Edith Eaton hoped to effect a change by means of her pen, to be the pioneer in bridging the Occident and the Orient, but the last article she published, less than a year before her death on April 7, 1914, was still a plea for the acceptance of working-class Chinese in America.” Biography of Edith Eaton from Georgetown University’s website.
In the short story, “In the land of the Free”, main character Lae Choo is a loving woman dedicated to doing anything for her young boy. Her and her son take a ship to San Francisco, California where they plan to meet Hom Hing (Lae Choo’s husband). Their hopes of living a prosperous and happy life are cut short when American Immigrations is forced to take their son away due to not having any papers that prove Hom and Lae have any “bearing upon the child” (Sui Sin Far, 881). They see no other solution and adamantly give the child to American government, in hopes of hearing back from “Washington” the very next day. Unfortunately, an entire year passes before they are reunited with their son again, and by then the young boy does not recognize his mother. This story is filled with heartbreak and sympathy for the Chinese immigrants who are taken advantage of and treated unfairly by the government.
It is clearly evident how much irony Sui Sin Far played in to this novel. The Norton Anthology is not at all wrong in saying that “In Sui Sin Far’s journalistic and fictional writings she vigorously and openly defends Chinese immigrants-especially women and working-class immigrants-with an ironic stance” (880). By simply titling the story “In the Land of the Free” we can see the irony for several reasons. For starters, Lae is immediately stripped of the only thing she cherishes (her son) the moment she steps on to American soil. Without even getting the chance to explain or fight for her son, she has to give him up because she quickly learns that working-class immigrants are not seen as equal to the whites, and begging for her son would not solve anything. The irony of her title becomes even stronger when several months pass with still no word from Washington. A young man arrives and offers to help the two get their son back by traveling to Washington and getting them the paper they need. All they have to do is pay a small amount...of 500 dollars- an amount they can’t even fathom. Lae, who is on the verge of death from agony, lights up when hearing that all she has to do to get her son back is pay money. She runs upstairs, grabs all of her finest gold jewelry, and hands it over to the man without any hesitation. Everything that is valuable to her is stripped away in a matter of seconds so that she can get her son back. The irony of this entire situation is unbelievable. To have to give your son away to a stranger is a punishment that should be paid back to her, not the other way around. But because she is Chinese, and a working-class immigrant, she has to fight twice as hard, and pay even more by sacrificing all of her gold. First, she loses her son, and then gives away all of her sacred belongings to a stranger in a country that she originally moved to so that she could be free.
The irony found in Sui Sin Far’s writing is more than evident, and the unequally of Chinese immigrants is clearly demonstrated in this heart-wrenching short story.
